I am not sure we really expected it to be any different at this time of the year especially after an historic stage visit from the Tour de France (insofar the hill was ascended and descended twice, for the first time). But the volumes of folk up there on top of Le Géant were rather more than we bargained for. The hill can absorb large numbers it is true and the majority do tend to congregate around the very top, not surprisingly. Fair enough, it is lovely up there, but we think the ascending and descending issues are beginning to become rather critical.
There are so many cyclists now who toil up from Bédoin, the difficult and classic ascent, that the route is reaching saturation point. Wheel to wheel, sometimes two abreast, etc, you know the form. For once I saw no indiscipline amongst those driving up, but some very reckless descending from cyclists, with considerable disregard for those ascending, and for their own safety. I gather the figures of those involved in accidents is increasing, as well as fatalities. Yet it is the French way to let the issue continue with little done to improve matters. Will there come a time when ascents will be limited in number or to a number of days a week? I hope not. Oh yes, there are probably too many cars also if the parking free-for-all up top is anything to go by…
But something has to give. How to keep motorised and pedal power apart, that’s the thing. Off-road bikers are beginning to make any path, away from the roadways, a new kind of hazard. One is, as it were, in the way. I thought it too rough for them but not any more, damn it.
We stopped short of the summit, like we often have before, parked up on the dead end road, and walked eastward. The flat summit thereabouts has now been used as a dumping ground for extracted material removed to make the changes we saw being engineered in autumn 2020, as well as a depository for discarded concrete and life expired tarmacadam. OK, neatly piled up and levelled, the loose stuff, to allow for a shallow relief to be created on its plateau (a bicycle motif, of course what else) but still somewhat of an eyesore. About three metres high, it messes up the spot heights FGS.
More concerning is the probable loss of the delicate alpines we have found up there on previous visits. Vaucluse seems to have tried to improve the summit but without consideration, much, to the rest of the hill. All in the interests of the visitor, in which case it has largely failed IMHO. But we did at least get some fresh air and exercise thereabouts, but viewed the summit area with some forboding as we were scheduled to pass over it and it was heaving, plain to see.
Trying to get over the top was no better an experience than in previous years despite the extra concrete laid here and there. The triumphal staircase from restaurant corniche to the summit tarmac capping causes danger to all and is a monstrous blot of pre-cast nastiness on the top bit. It was never pretty, but now… The traffic was muddled, chaotic, aggravated by over large vehicles still having access over the top. We had first hand experience of that!
Best of all, cyclists are directed to cut diagonally through and across both directions of traffic so they can top out Ventoux over the glorious summit white line across the uppermost black-top: at risk to them and the rest of the throng. The chaos Vaucluse has rendered up there now has to be managed by the local gendarmerie! Who came up with the ideas? Needs another spell at the drawing board m’thinks, not to mention an introduction to environmental management and the flora/fauna associated with same.
Meanwhile Ventoux looks mutely on at the muddle on its flanks. Winter will come and close the roads except to the cat-track. The sheep flocks will still move across the mostly undisturbed flanks and upper forest remnants. The concrete will age and crack and if the Family Seat still holds on, maybe another weather blasted plank will yield. Winter… skiers then show up I guess… there are ski-tows on the western ridge… As for that communications tower: there’s a case of an eyesore becoming an icon!
footnote: yes, yes yes, we know, if we go up there we are just adding to the problem. Don’t need to point it out. Most issues in this world are other people, let’s face it…
Anyway. No more summer visits: on that we are resolved. Spring, Autumn, Winter. That’s it. We’ll walk it if its closed. And by the way, we pay taxes here in Vaucluse, so think on. I bet you don’t!
